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As we finished our Scandinavian leg of our tour, we had to take the time to make our donations to organizations in our participating countries. First up was Sweden, where €2355, or $2727, was donated to “Frihamnen – Hemlösas Hus,” or Homeless Houses Freeport, which provides help for homeless people, and works to eliminate homelessness from Sweden. Mr. Anderberg (3rd from the left in the photo below), the organization’s chairman, joined us to accept the donation.

Next was Norway, where igus GmbH and our Norwegian distributor ASI Automatikk donated to a local children’s hospital. We drove 910 km across Norway, which we rounded up to 1,000, then donated 20 Norwegian Krones for each, coming to a total donation of 20,000 NOK, or $2,630. With the money, the hospital can expand their playground, and purchase some new toys for their patients! (from L to R: Geir Berven (ASI Automatikk AS), Elmar Reder (igus GmbH), Grete Nygård Spilling (nurse), Kjellfrid Tolfsen (nurse), Turid Stadheim (nurse), Karl Weinmeister (iglide on tour).

After making our donations to these great organizations and sadly removing our local moose decal, it was time to leave our Scandinavian hosts and head toward Szczecin, Poland.

With Poland’s head of iglide bearings, Marcin (Martin to some of us!), as our giude, we set out to explore beautiful Poland for the first time, such as the Europe’s largest wooden pier in the seaside town of Sopot, where we took some time to explore the local area.

We also had some time to take in some local historical sights. We visited the European Solidarity Center, as well as a section of the incredibly massive Malbork Castle, the largest castle by surface area in the world!

We arrived in Sweden very early in the morning on just a few hours sleep to meet with Dirk Schaar, editor of the German Magazine MDA Technologies, and Oliver Cyrus, igus’ head of PR and Advertising, who both joined in on the drive. Our first stop was the Swedish capital, Stockholm. We visited Riksdag, which is Sweden’ house of parliament, and the stopped by the Stockholm Palace, or Sveriges Kungahus, the official residence of the Swedish royal family.

Top: Nils, Dirk Schaar (MDA Technologies), Karl, Oliver Cyrus (PR and Advertising at igus), Sandor. Bottom: The iglide car at the back of the Sveriges Kungahus.

Being in Sweden, it seemed essential that we stop by the ABBA museum as well! 😉

Being in Scandinavia for this part of our tour, we had decorated the iglide car with a sticker of a moose, but over the weekend we had a chance to get up-close and personal with the popular animals at an “Älgsafari” or a moose safari!

We had a lot of fun, but had to get moving to finish up our tour of Sweden and make it back to Denmark. We spent the next day in Copenhagen to do some sightseeing – it was tough, as we were looking for a landmark only 4 feet tall!

We found her! Den lille havfrue (The Little Mermaid) in Copenhagen

In the city center, we had hoped to visitTivoli, one of the world’s most famous amusement parks. Unfortunately, the park and its surrounding gardens are closed for renovations until the spring. We did, however, find Amalienborg, the winter home of the Danish royal family, where we took a final group photo with Dirk and Oliver before they left home for Germany.

That same wind that powers the country was so high that we had no choice but to take the ferry out of Frederikshavn, an important harbor town in the Northern tip of Denmark. The ferry took us through the North Sea under very high winds, with waves as high as 20 feet! While the iglide car was tucked safely below deck, two of my colleagues got a bit seasick and had to take cover as well. More to come as we make our way into Norway!